


The Prize of the Game

by Siria



Series: Nantucket AU [77]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alternate Universe, Future Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-02-14
Updated: 2008-02-14
Packaged: 2017-10-03 20:18:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21847
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siria/pseuds/Siria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The night Rodney is awarded the Nobel, he gets a little tipsy during the award banquet; not enough for anyone else to notice it, the crowd made up of ambassadors and royalty, journalists and scientists and Teyla and her children, but John can tell.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Prize of the Game

**Author's Note:**

> With thanks to dogeared and sheafrotherdon for the encouragement. Futurefic. Possibly apocrypha, but probably not :&gt;

The night Rodney is awarded the Nobel, he gets a little tipsy during the award banquet; not enough for anyone else to notice it, the crowd made up of ambassadors and royalty, journalists and scientists and Teyla and her children, but John can tell. The broad smile on Rodney's face is just a little too loose at the corners. He's not much better himself by the time they get back to their hotel room, mellow on expensive wine; when they stagger in the door, he's entirely amenable to Rodney's suggestion that they empty the mini-bar, because the hell with it, when will they ever be here again?

Rodney pulls out handfuls of little bottles of whisky, vodka, schnapps, brandy and rum, tossing them onto the bed where John's sprawled in his already-rumpled tuxedo. By the time they've worked their way through half of them, they're both of them naked, hot and sticky with spilled alcohol: licking it from salty skin like a ready-made tequila shot, laughing and kissing sloppily, conspiratorially, tossing dress shirts to land in crumpled heaps on the floor.

Rodney's mouth, unerring, finds that one patch of stubbled skin right under John's jaw, the one that always makes him moan, and sucks once, hard. He hums at the noise that pulls from John's gut, and then pulls away. "Wha'?" John says, reaching out with unsteady hands to pull Rodney down to him, because he wants that mouth _back_, but Rodney shakes his head and says "Oh, no, no, I'm gonna c'lbrate. Nobel Prize winner prero— prirag— S'my right. Kiss you all over."

"Wha'?" John says, intelligently. Rodney's kneeling over him now, hard and naked, that particular determined gleam in his eye that John's come to associate with revolutionary leaps in humanity's understanding of quantum physics, and also with orgasms.

"Hush," Rodney slurs, "Have a project." He wriggles down the bed, inch-worm like, and presses a kiss to the high arch of John's right foot.

_Oh_, John thinks vaguely, _he means_ all _over._

Rodney's clever mouth moves upwards slowly, as he licks at the fine bones of John's ankle, right where the scattering of thick, black hair begins; nips gently at John's calf; pays special attention to the scar of that one knee, where Swedish snow has revived the old, dull ache, and he licks along faded scar tissue so carefully. John starts at that, looks down at Rodney as he works, at his thinning, greying hair, and it's harder to breathe suddenly.

Up along John's thighs he moves: left and right, inside and out, soft skin and rough hair. John's legs are moving, shifting unconsciously, spreading wider, because it's so good, _so_ good, wet tongue and soft lips and the occasional scrape of teeth, and Rodney's moving so _slowly._

He's mumbling while he works, nonsense words imbued with hidden meanings that spread John as wide open as Rodney's hands do: little murmurs of love and affection that underlie what they're doing, the constant soundtrack of their lives together.

Rodney moves up, up, and John braces himself, ready for that first glorious touch of Rodney's mouth against his cock, anticipation strangling the breath in his throat, fingers tangling into the sheets, and—

—and Rodney lurches forward suddenly, pins John's hands against the bed and blows a raspberry against John's stomach. It's a sudden, wet shock that's enough to make something like a giggle burst out of John's throat, joy fizzing with the alcohol in his blood.

"I _said_, I'm gonna taste you everywhere," Rodney says. Vodka always makes him stubborn, makes him over-enunciate. "Don't get ahead of m'schedule."

John sighs, and pouts, and says "Fine, _okay_," and has to fight not to squirm when Rodney licks a wet stripe up his stomach, tongue ruffling hairs that are now salt-and-pepper from long years spent together, crying out when Rodney sucks one nipple into his mouth. Rodney's tongue is drawing sounds from him, noises that could be embarrassing but aren't; there's no one to hear them but Rodney, and of all the things Rodney's ever made John feel, shame isn't one of them.

Rodney leaves both John's nipples red and tender when he moves to suck kisses along the shadowed curve of John's collarbone; bites down on each shoulder; presses affection down arms that are still strong; mouths tender kisses on the inside of John's wrists—where delicate skin is normally hidden by watch and wristband—before sucking on John's fingers until they're wet and John is panting.

He swirls his tongue around the fingers of John's right hand one last time before letting them go, and pushing John's hand down to wrap around the hard length of his own cock.

"Huh," John says, panting at the impact of long-wanted touch, "Thought I—"

It's been years, and Rodney still rolls his eyes when he thinks John is being ridiculous; now is no different. "_I'm_ going to kiss you," he says, words blurry with lust now as much as with drink. "_You_ can touch yourself. S'hot," he offers imperiously, manner as smug as it was when he was making his acceptance speech earlier that evening.

John considers for a moment, then says "Okay," affably, and he goes willingly when Rodney tugs him to lie on his side. They curl around one another, breathing one another's air, and there's a long moment of stillness, of calm, before Rodney brushes his fingers along John's cheek and returns his focus to kissing: trails kisses up John's neck, presses the flat of his tongue against John's thudding pulse and whispers suggestions to John, things he wants him to do: _harder, touch yourself faster, slower, more, just against the head, play with your balls, I know you like that, I know— _

Rodney's known him for god, twenty years now; known him since Rodney was tired and John was angry; has known every inch of his body since then in happiness and sadness and slow-moving content. He knows John well enough to know what he likes, to know what he loves; but here in a bed that's not theirs, on a mattress Rodney insists isn't anywhere near supportive enough of his back, it's like meeting Rodney all over again, just like that long-faded day on a beach in Nantucket. Because this moment, this is why he loves Rodney, John thinks, pressing up into his touch and shuddering: he loves him because Rodney can make him feel like this, because Rodney can show him parts of himself he never knew of, because Rodney can pull him into parts of the universe John could never have reached by himself.

When Rodney finally breaks, pressing whole-bodied up against John, mouth and hips and hands moving; when he comes hot and damp against John's belly and reaches up to tangle his fingers in John's hair, blind and helpless and lost in feeling, John learns this too: that the best thing he has ever done in his life is contained in a little grey-shingled house on an island in the sea. It's here in this bed, between the two of them; it's here cupped in the palm of Rodney's hands, in how their fingers tangle together as they slip into sleep, loose and lax, together.


End file.
